


running for a sun too young

by ellipsesificate



Category: Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: BW Rarepair Week 2018, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 17:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16521812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellipsesificate/pseuds/ellipsesificate
Summary: Silverbolt and Quickstrike discuss the future.





	running for a sun too young

**Author's Note:**

> it's really cool when half the cast if full of amnesiacs so you can do basically whatever the fuck you want for backstory

“But I’m no scientist—I have no qualifications, no way to contribute…”

“Y’think they only bother with bringin’ a bunch of egghead scientists on board?” Kicking his feet up on the table next to where he had put the papers (passports, applications, everything they could need) for Silverbolt’s perusal, Quickstrike puffed his chassis with a proud grunt. “Trip like this needs some muscle in case slag hits the turbine. ‘Sides, ain’t like you’re slow. You’ll be pullin’ your weight in no time!”

“My love,” Silverbolt said, soft and sad, but Quickstrike barreled on.

“Long expedition, yea but we wanna get off this crummy planet for a while anyways.”

“Strike…”

“It’ll be a clean slate! All the other varmints’ll keep to themselves, you and I’ll have all the space we want, like when we was livin’ outside of Iacon—”

“I can’t go.”

Silence fell between them, strained near snapping. Quickstrike stared, optics giving away nothing, and Silverbolt met him head on despite the crackle of shame beneath his plating. The clatter and racket of the city streets seemed muted outside of their little apartment, and every part of Silverbolt ached to escape it.

Maybe in another lifetime, maybe if they hadn’t met in a broken-up bar, maybe if Silverbolt was either a little less of a hypocrite or could shed guilt as easily as Quickstrike did. But by now they had a tired routine, taken to the next logical step. Hopping from city-state to city-state, Quickstrike excusing it with how much travel his field required and Silverbolt keeping his head lower and lower until something caused him to rear back up snarling.

“I can’t...you should go, this is an incredible opportunity, but I can’t just run away from this.”

Quickstrike didn’t waver. He never did. “Ain’t running away.”

“You’re suggesting that I leave the planet entirely, Quickstrike.” Now, more than ever, Silverbolt had to stay calm and rational. He’d already had to learn the hard way what it meant if he lost his temper, and he couldn’t do that again—at the very least, not to Quickstrike.

“ _We_ leave it!” Unfortunately, Quickstrike had no such compunctions. Pulling his feet off the table with a scrape, Quickstrike jerked upwards and forwards, leaning into Silverbolt with sparking optics. “You think I wanna stay here with all these high-falutin tinhorns? Think I wanna leave you to them? It weren’t your fault anyways!”

“Many would debate that.”

That seemed to be the last straw for Quickstrike; he leapt over the table, crashing into Silverbolt’s lap before he had a chance to react beyond instinctively grabbing Quickstrike’s shoulders to right him up. “Listen here,” Quickstrike said, stubbornly settling where he’d fallen and leaning into Silverbolt’s hands. “Yeah, I had to pull some strings to get us both on the Axalon, but Wing Saber is plumb happy to vouch for us! She knows you’d be—”

Grip tightening ever so slightly, Silverbolt carefully shifted his lover back. “But that isn’t the point. For me to take this opportunity, rather than accepting the consequences of my actions, it’s...it’s cowardly.”

“ _Cowardly_.” The accusation hissed out of Quickstrike like air through cracked lines, forcing Silverbolt to flinch back. “Y’aint no yellow-belly. I want out of here, I want _you_ out of here, so we’re gettin’ out of here. You hear me? You deserve a fresh start. Both of us.”

Long ago, when he was younger, Silverbolt was enamoured with the Great War. Stories of the gallant, noble Autobots whose good deeds effortlessly lived up to their principles and won out over amoral Decepticon instincts. It wasn’t until that first time his anger resolved into action, sudden and savage, that he began to wonder just how easy it was for the Autobots to maintain those principles.

Quickstrike brushed it off as having convictions, that he just cared strongly and fiercely enough to express them. It was never something that Quickstrike could get away with, not in his line of work. For a moment Silverbolt wondered what Quickstrike really wanted out of this—if he’s realized that escaping the rigid planetside structures means throwing himself to the mercy of close-quarter expectations.

He’d known it could come to this. Quickstrike was hardly subtle, always restless, never satisfied with the humdrum of research. And Silverbolt had seen the fork in the road all too clearly, thought that his weakness would only drive him so far from who he wanted to be.

With a deep sigh, Silverbolt’s hands slipped from Quickstrike’s shoulders to his waist, giving him the leave to lean in closer, looping his arms around his neck. In the dim light, silver and clouded gold molded against each other.

“If you gotta,” Quickstrike said, quietly, “you can reckon it as...shoot, community service?”

“Mm.” Silverbolt pressed his cheek against the top of Quickstrike’s head and stared blankly at the wall. Curling in closer, Quickstrike pressed his face against Silverbolt’s chassis. Every inch of that small body warmed Silverbolt’s plating, rooting him in place and pushing him to fly far, far away from here, just him and Quickstrike.

Maybe neither of them were right, maybe he wasn’t as noble as he wanted, but what harm could come out of being just a little bit selfish?

“A fresh start…”

“That’s right. You’n me, on the Axalon. Together.”

Cycles later, not long before dawn, two battered stasis pods split open on an ancient world.


End file.
